Pensions Bill

moved Amendment No. 7: 7: After Clause 13, insert the following new Clause— ““Report on employment and training of older workers The Secretary of State shall lay a report bi-annually before each House of Parliament— (a) analysing, by job sector, the number and distribution of people over 50 who are seeking work, and (b) on the provision of training for people over 50.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I tabled this amendment in Committee but time pressures meant that I was unable to move it. We were able, however, to touch briefly on the difficulties facing older workers, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, did her best to reassure me on this subject in her response to another amendment. However, I feel that it would be useful to debate this amendment more fully, especially as my noble friend Lord Fowler—even if he is not here, I am still talking to him—regretted my decision then. My amendment focuses on the effectiveness of the Government’s schemes to improve the employment opportunities for older workers. The noble Baroness mentioned some of these schemes in Committee, such as the Age Positive initiative and the New Deal 50 Plus. My noble friend Lord Fowler gave a fairly clear indication that, unfortunately, these were not working. According to the Answer to my Written Question from the National Statistician and Registrar General, the mandate survey, which covers approximately 90 per cent of civil servants in departments and government agencies, revealed that of these employees 585 were aged 65 or over at 1 April 2005. That is around 0.1 per cent of the mandate population, an almost insignificant number, which does not give me an awful lot of confidence. Fortunately, the situation in the private sector is rather better. This is perhaps not that surprising, given the proven benefits that older workers contribute to their companies and industries. Some 25 per cent of respondents to an EEF survey in 2004 said that they employed full-time workers over 65, and a third employed part-time workers over 65. However, there is still a long way to go. Research from numerous independent organisations, such as the Chartered Management Institute, shows that age discrimination is alive and well. It affects older people’s chances of being hired to a new job, receiving promotions and assessing career advice resources. This discrimination impacts even more strongly on women; they are perceived to become an older worker at a younger age than men and so suffer these disadvantages for even more of their working life. Can the Minister explain why the public sector is so much worse in this regard than the private sector? She reassured me in Committee that the bar on the DWP appointing those over 65 to public appointments had been lifted. This makes me wonder what other bars remain. Are there any positions in the public sector with an upper age limit? My amendment would ensure greater transparency for government departments as well as for private sector companies and ensure that government initiatives were actually achieving something. At the moment, they appear to do nothing but pay lip service to the principle of employing older workers. I turn to the provision of training. The Government apparently understand the importance of education for older workers. The Minister mentioned the Government’s commitment to giving older workers access to new skills, yet the money provided to the further education sector is almost entirely targeted at young people. It is not all bad news—there have been some notable successes with the provision of remedial literacy and numeracy classes, but not nearly enough attention has been given to other skills. Can the Minister lay out how much of the further education budget is spent on older workers and say whether the Government intend to increase this amount over the next few years? As I have said many times during the Bill’s passage, its success or otherwise will depend on employment at a later and later age. I beg to move.